Unity Community

Blessings and Belief

By Unity Community web master, Malayna Dawn

As someone who likes to recycle, I keep my page-a day calendars to use as scratch paper. And since I usually have a calendar with positive messages of some sort, I get to be inspired all over again!  Today I was consolidating a few lists (I'm a list maker, too) and noticed a recurring theme - BLESSINGS.

These are from The Secret calendar, from a few years ago. The first one was for September 28th:

"The dictionary defines blessing as 'invoking divine favor and conferring well-being or prosperity,' so begin right now to invoke the power of blessing in your life, and bless everything and everyone.

Likewise with praising, for when you are praising someone or something you are giving love, and as you emit that magnificent frequency, it will return to you a hundredfold."

The next is from August 27th:

"Praise and bless everything in your life! When you are priaising or blessing you are on the highest frequency of love.  In the Bible, the Hebrews used the act of blessing to bring forth health, wealth and happiness.  They knew the power of blessing."

And finally, adding another layer, the page for July 4th:

"See the things that you want as already yours. Know that they will come to you at need.  Then let them come.  Don't fret and worry about them. Don't think about your lack of them. Think of them as yours, as belonging to you, as already in your posession." - Robert Collier (1885 - 1950)

These ideas are not new to us in Unity, but a reminder is always nice.  And when serendipity seems to be sending me the same message repeatedly, I figure I'd be wise to listen!

So join me as I love it all, bless it all, praise it all!  Infuse your past, present, and future with "health, wealth and prosperity" and call it all good. I know it's all good!

Enjoy!

Thoughts for January 2012

From Lucele Coutts, one of Unity Community Church's members-at-large.

Approaching January of this New Year, I daily find my life, as well as the world, quite different from 2011--both positive and not so, due to the unrest on our beloved Mother Earth.

So I have gained many reasons to shore up myself, because I see such conflict, and it is hard to ignore, and I have found many reasons to pray and meditate often.

The prayers that come to mind are those memorized over the years from childhood, and though they often seem childlike, they are helping me go beyond my unease.

Because they are so locked in my memory, they come easily to mind without taking a book from the shelf, which usually keeps me reading instead of praying, helping me get on with my life. And so having several health challenges that needed my definite effort, I found new ways and challenges that I enjoy doing that have become ways to improve my wealth as well.

So that is my TIP for this month: Letting God be in charge, look for ways to improve yourself, and as you open your heart to that challenge, I’m sure you will find surprises that God already has waiting for you.

Image from Calhoun Underground's new year's message for 2008: "This is gonna be a crazy year. Like a roller coaster ride. So we all need to grab hold of each other and hang on tight. And keep adding more folks to the cluster. Hug your neighbor, pass out random acts of love. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Bring about the world peace we want so badly."

January 2011 Thoughts

From Lucele Coutts, one of Unity Community Church's members-at-large.

          As I headed for another new year and the beginning of the Circle of Life, I studied what I had learned in the past year, and it was quite revealing in many ways.   I found I have overcome many things from my past, but there were more, some to overcome, and some to place in my positive memories.  One of the “keepsakes” was interesting, because I had started to think about it more deeply myself, and it seemed to be uncomfortable.        

         In the English language we call our spiritual communities "churches", which has a rather “hard rock” interpretation for something that is simply a gathering of people who have similar beliefs.  And when our Reverend leader here in Arizona recently mentioned that he chose the name Center for our new ’church’, it was because it is a Center not only where a spiritual community gathers one day a week to discuss our beliefs in a loving and communal way, but it is also a spiritual center within each of us we consider our God Center or Heart.

         And though a lifetime of using the word church is not an easy one to break, I am doing it gradually, as I think about our Spiritual Center where we gather for communion and support as all God children do each week, we also have a God Center flowing within us, the heart of us that is always ready to support as well.  

TIP: So although there are “laws” in life and in spirituality, they are as changeable as our lives, and as they grow and change for the better, we become stronger and more resilient to change as we are guided to do things that are always better for us, and we are better God expressions for the world around us.

Image: Font from Briar Press.com, modified for the Unity Community blog.

Symbolic Wishes for a Metaphysical Christmas

Here are 20 Christmas wishes for you, based in the symbolism of the Christmas story with a metaphysical interpretation.

 

1. May the Christ Spirit permeate your consciousness to become a transformative experience -- your inner Christmas.

2. This Christmas, may you move from the inn of your intellect to the manger of your heart, from where the Christ is born.

3. Jesus’ human father, Joseph, represents your intellectual nature. This Christmas, let it guide you to the right state of mind to support a new spiritual awareness.

4. Mary symbolizes pure intuition. This Christmas, may your intuitive insight guide you to accept the birth of new blessings in your life.

5. This Christmas, like a spiritual shepherd, may you observe and tend to your thoughts and feelings with  loving care to welcome the Christ within you.

6. Angels represent messages from God as divine inspiration and guidance, which bring “good tidings of great joy.” May angels sing in you this Christmas.

7. May you be like the three wise men--The Magi--who represent the higher wisdom and spiritual insight that comes when we are open to the guidance of the guiding light of truth.

November - The Power of Elimination

 

Affirmation: I release anything and everything that no longer serves my unfolding good.

You can read more about Unity's 12 Powers and November's power, Elimination at Unity's website, www.unity.org.  

For me, it means finally facing that I'm holding on to things for the wrong reasons.  I'm sure you've had those times when things made sense logically, but you had a challenge feeling good about them anyway. When I go with the logic without engaging my heart and soul in the decision, it drains my energy.

So I remind myself that I am clearing space for something better when I release what no longer serves me.  And I'm certain that someone else is just waiting for that very thing I'm releasing, praying for it, because it is right and perfect for them.

Come join us at Unity Community Church in Reseda, California as we explore the power of elimination and how it shows up in our lives.

November 2010 Thoughts

From Lucele Coutts, one of Unity Community Church's members-at-large.

When Gail Minogue reminded me recently that the fall months are always the time to clear things up, I realized that I was doing just that.

I am not only on my way to doing what I am meant to do, having joined the local Art Center, and having taken a class to learn more as well as shore up my weaker points in the new clay, I am on my way to find a true place in a field of art I never realized I could do.

And now I can laugh about my college professor announcing in front of the class that I had no talent for art, for I am finally able to release that belief I had in myself was wrong.

And I am really listening to my inner voice, as I did some time back when I was guided to ask my Unity friends here in Arizona to find the right doctor, who has not only added some difficult extensions to my own exercise program, and but he began searching for the right answer to correct my back and leg problem without surgery.  And when he learned something new recently, Our Creator guided his exceptional osteopathic hands to correct the problem, and it has begun to bring more comfort. 

And I am doing even more myself, as Myrtle Fillmore did when she realized that she could heal herself, for I truly believe I can heal my body as my comfort grows day by day, and I am finding that I am returning to regular health in other ways as well. 

I am so thankful that I didn’t give up or shake my faith in the doctor who too refused to give up finding a way to help me without surgery.  And I am so grateful that God really works in wondrous and unending ways.

TIP: So my tip for this month is a simple truth that we all have heard over and over.  It is up to each of us to build our trust into an unfailing faith though things seem impossible.  Just as my art work was rushed into being, my health is also happening, in God’s time and process, for I truly believe that God is always ready to help each of us, but we must not only truly believe it is so, we must open ourselves to believe that things which seem impossible are possible.

Examining Our Shadows – The Symbolism of Monster Archetypes

How about some Halloween Spirit-uality?

Before we begin examining the monster archetypes, it’s important to realize that they don’t just represent a dark, malevolent side of us, but rather the part of our being that is least familiar to our conscious mind.

They become hostile only when it is ignored or misunderstood--expressing themselves through behavior that often sabotages our wishes or image of ourselves. But they serve us by nudging us toward the light. The important thing is that if you feel some resonance these or any other symbolic roles, you should examine what they represent to YOU. 

Let’s think of our inner monsters as our as unexplored power, bringing light to what is in shadow.

Vampire 

• Vampires survive by feeding off the life-force of another. Caroline Myss describes the vampire archetype this way: “we sometimes form attachments to others because we desire their energy, a desire that manifests through the need to have the ‘other’ take care of our survival.  What has been defined as a co-dependent relationship could easily fall under the vampire template.  You may find it hard to identify yourself as a vampire, yet it is essential to review this archetype personally.  Patterns of behavior such as chronic complaining, overdependence, holding on to a relationship either emotionally or psychically long after it has ended, and chronic power struggles are all indicators of Vampire patterns.”

 

Mummy

• A mummy is someone who has died and been wrapped up for preservation.  The ones that walk among us in fiction are undead. I can imagine that someone who has been hurt in life would "die inside" and wrap themselves up to heal their wounds, and might feel like the walking dead.  But their wrapping would keep them from fully engaging in life.  They would be tied to that old way of thinking, preserved within the wrappings.  They might need to awaken to the realization that they are still able to walk, and to gradually let the old ideas fall away so they can be fully reanimated. 

October 2010 Thoughts

From Lucele Coutts, one of Unity Community Church's members-at-large.

TV news seems to be broadcasting little more than disaster, angry politics, and all the wrong finances these days, and I find myself escaping to join Bill to watch football games as a positive change, but I am also referring to Eric Butterworth a lot, and though I never met Eric, I did know his brother. We both were included in a surprise lunch when we joined the same school district as teachers on the same day. 

Seating myself across from an attractive young man at a table for two, I introduced myself, and was pleased and curious when he said his name. During our conversation, I asked him why, coming from such a long line of Unity ministers, he wasn’t one as well. He told me that he thought he could reach more people through psychiatry than the ministry. And as I think about him now, I remember that I was not surprised when he advanced quickly into the higher echelon of the Los Angeles County Schools. I lost track of him, but I’m sure he didn’t stop there, because he was as good at his job as his brother was at his.

Anyway, Eric has been shoring me up again lately, reminding me that “prosperity” actually is a host of things besides finances. It is simply an attitude of mind, helping me to remember when good things just seem to drop out of the blue to help as they have lately. Not only finances, but ideas, helpful work ideas, and I know that it is God’s “prosperity” pouring into my life--so fast it is difficult to contain them. 

So I pull out pen and paper to write everything down, because when I do, they’re glued into my memory, rather than letting them joyously float away, and I can refer to them later.  And when I do that, something always seems to stand out, and I know my Inner Spirit is telling me I am ready for it.  And I am finding lately, not surprisingly, my finances have been doing pretty well, too.

So this is my TIP for this month: 

Start keeping a written list of prosperous ideas of every kind, where it is always available, to remind you that prosperity is far more than finances. And be sure to include those things you may overlook as unimportant, every day or just mundane, because each prosperous idea is important, even keeping a house or desk clean, preparing nutritious meals, being a friend, keeping a prosperous mind, or even balancing a check book.

I am sure you can make a much longer mundane list than that. And as you work on some of those minor ones, you will begin to see how more things begin to show up on that list or even more pop into your mind in a positive way.  Our Creator knows when you are ready, and is giving you gentle (or even some pretty strong) shoves in the right direction. He is also letting you know that it is the time to become quiet and give thanks, and tell your Creator what you would like to do next.  And then, you will find something else to be true, as I do, that you must be ready to do something about it, because your Divine Self is telling you it is time to move.

Learning Divine Order from Puzzles ~ Sudoku Spirituality

From Malayna Dawn, Unity Community Church's webmaster and member-at-large.

Like with any puzzle, it starts off looking like there’s no way from the start to completion.  But once you start playing with possibilities, it all comes together, little by little. 

If you haven’t already seen where I’m going with this – it’s to draw parallel with life and the concept of Divine Order. 

Order is the spiritual power we’re working on in September, as we follow along with Unity’s 12 Powers, as we affirm:

My life is in balance and in order, and all is well.

Divine order is established in my mind, body and life.

~ Original image from Sudoku Garden. ~

Sudoku is more about order than, say, crossword puzzles or piecing together a picture.  In Sudoku, you’re given a grid with some numbers filled in.  You fill in the open spaces by first penciling in the possibilities that could ensure that each column and each row have only one instance of each of the numerals from 1 – 9. 

It’s not mathematical, it’s about sequencing.  What begins as incomplete, seemingly nonsensical and random turns into repeating patterns and finally ORDER.  Ahhhhhh.  Everything fits. 

It’s a process of elimination, from possibilities to patterns until, as they put it in the movie What The Bleep Do We Know? you “collapse in on the one.” (Watch the clip below, especially from 6 minutes and 30 seconds in to 7:03 -  it’ll blow your mind and change what you think about possibilities!) 

With both Sudoku and life, there are things we know, and things we don’t.  In the unknown are a variety of possibilities with any number of combinations. And at some point, the way becomes clear.  Click-click-click – like the combination to a safe—and you’ve made it!  (Or shall we say, you’ve created it?)

So how do we apply this to life?  As we go about our days, let’s remember to see life as a series of games—puzzles to be solved, challenges to be mastered before moving beyond them to the next game.  All the while, we can hold on to the thought that somehow, it’s all going to come together and make a complete picture. 

What will the outcome be? God only knows!  (No, really.  God as in The Divine.  The “Divine” in “Divine Order.”) We just may not be able to see the picture yet, and perhaps we never really will, but we have to trust that the Divine puzzle-maker can see the whole picture, and that it’s right and good and meant to be. 

And when we do get the satisfaction of seeing the completed picture, we should enjoy it.  Because soon, we’ll probably be bored and need a new challenge anyway!

So go out and play with life, and know that’s all as it should be…in Divine Order.

Written by Malayna Dawn, Unity Community's webmaster and member-at-large. Entertain the possibilities and make life an enjoyable adventure by reading her blog, Symbolic Themes  or her novel, Echoes Across Time! 

September Thoughts

From Lucele Coutts, one of Unity Community Church's members-at-large.

This month’s adventure started very early, in June to be exact, when someone mentioned Dream Catchers in casual conversation, and I mentioned that they are fun to make. When word moved quickly, I found myself returning to my past when I was asked if I would teach them. I hesitated, yet seeing their enthusiasm, I agreed, finding myself on a search for rings to make them. 

Though I have learned things are not easily found here in the less populated Northern part of Arizona, I innocently thought with so many Native American communities here at least wooden rings could be found. But it seems the only kinds they have are for jewelry or curtain rods.

Almost ready to throw in the towel, I tried one last place over our Western mountains in Prescott, where I located an old friend from L.A., and a shop that has them in abundance—on order.  So once again I will be able to complete another part of my Dharma (purpose) by continuing in a positive direction-- being of service using my unique gifts and talents that My Creator has given me.

Maybe, like the elderly lady I mentioned sometime back, you still haven’t discovered yours. She thought she had achieved so little in her life, because she had nothing to offer. She was one of the richest people I had ever known, though, for her gift was unconditional love-- a gift she had spread so widely during her long life that she had many friends willing to do anything for her, because she had loved them all so well. 

So that is my TIP for the month: I am once more reminding you to ask those who know you the best to reveal your gifts, and I know you will be surprised how quickly you find out just how special you are.  You don’t have to write a best seller, or create a Mona Lisa, or even win an Olympic gold.  There are many things in this world that are far more important, and what yours is, is one of them.  And always remember that yours were given by Our Creator with unconditional love so you can use them with your unconditional love.  

Dreamcatcher photo courtesy of Mary Kay Dreamcatchers